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110 S. African L.J. 450 (1993)
Sexual Orientation and the Constitution: A Test Case for Human Rights

handle is hein.journals/soaf110 and id is 462 raw text is: SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND THE CONSTITUTION: A TEST CASE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS* EDWIN CAMERON- Ad hominem Professor of Law, Centre for Applied Legal Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and Member of the Johannesburg Bar 1 INTRODUCTION The present constitutional debate in South Africa has focused largely on three issues: 1 the form and powers of the Constitution-making bodies and their relation to the exercise of governmental authority during the transition to democratic rule; 2 the way in which a future Constitution, once adopted, will be capable of being amended (the question, in other words, of 'minority rights', minority vetoes and 'group', including regional, protection); and 3 the extent to which social and economic rights should be enshrined in, and capable of enforcement through, a Bill of Rights. 1 Beyond these issues, notwithstanding justified concerns that the interests of women, for instance, will not be adequately protected under the new dispensation,2 a large measure of consensus appears already to have been reached. Thus the draft Bills of Rights of both the Government-appointed South African Law Commission3 and the African National Congress4 accept * Revised version of inaugural lecture delivered on 27 October 1992. t BA (Hons) (Stell) LLB (Unisa) BCL MA (Oxon), Advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa. This debate is illuminated by an exchange between Etienne Mureinik and Dennis Davis: see Etienne Mureinik 'Beyond a Charter of Luxuries: Economic Rights in the Constitution' (1992) 8 SAJHR 464; D M Davis 'The Case Against the Inclusion of Socio-economic Demands in a Bill of Rights Except as Directive Principles' (1992) 8 SAJHR 475. 2 See, generally, Cathi Albertyn 'Achieving Equality for Women-The Limits of a Bill of Rights' Centre for Applied Legal Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Working Paper 17 June 1992. ' South African Law Commission Working Paper 25 Project 58 Group and Human Rights (1989); Interim Report (August 1991). ' A Bill of Rights for a New South Africa. A Working Document by the ANC Constitutional Committee (Centre for Development Studies, University of the Western Cape, 1990); 'Policy Guidelines for a Democratic South Africa' as adopted at the ANC National Policy Conference May 1992; Draft Bill of Rights-Preliminary Revised Version February 1993. 450

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